Pipikaula at Helena's Hawaiian Food

PHOTO: MARTHA CHENG

If you’ve never much cared for pipikaula, this is the one that will convert you. Helena’s doesn’t reduce its beef to near-jerky dryness, instead marinating the bone-in short ribs in soy sauce, hanging the meat above the stove overnight to dry and then frying them right before they land on your table in a cafeteria-green melamine bowl. Crispy on the outside, juicy within: This is how Helen Chock made her pipikaula for 61 years, and the way her grandson Craig Katsuyoshi makes it still.